


Bug Spray and Daisy Chains

by FutureLikeJicasso



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: AU - everything sucks, Alternate Universe, Coming of Age, Getting Together, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, i think, minsungbingo, this is hard to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23173876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FutureLikeJicasso/pseuds/FutureLikeJicasso
Summary: Even when it feels like the world has ended, it never quite stops spinning.Jisung has turned another year older, and while he doesn’t feel particularly festive, Minho insists that turning nineteen is an event that can’t be left uncelebrated.
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 18
Kudos: 184
Collections: MINSUNG BINGO: Round One





	Bug Spray and Daisy Chains

**Author's Note:**

> aw yeah it's minsung bingo time!
> 
> I had to take the prompts extremely loosely, am not entirely sure what this weird thing is, but I'm going to be cheeky and pretend it counts for the **AU - Dystopian, Coming of Age** and **Kisses** tropes on my bingo card. hopefully it's enjoyable for someone!
> 
> also, if you haven't already, I recommend signing up for the event ;D I can't make the link work, because I'm a caveman, but go to @minsungbingo on twitter for the details and all the cool fills people have done already! ♥

“What a weird fuckin’ world to grow up in.”

“An achievement, honestly.” Minho plopped down beside Jisung with a smile, immediately making him feel warmer than the campfire in front of them had in hours. “Nineteen whole years - how do you feel?”

“Honestly? World-weary.” He laughed, resting his head easily on Minho’s shoulder as soon as it was offered to him. God, he really was so tired, and Minho had barely let him do anything all day because  _ it’s your special day, ‘Sungie,  _ taking over setting up camp and cooking and cleaning up entirely on his own rather than sharing responsibilities like they usually did. “For a while I didn’t know if I’d make it this far. Now I gotta wonder how much further I’m going.”

“A lot further. We promised.”

They sure had promised. How Jisung had reached the point that he’d promise Minho the entire world and so much more if the older boy asked it of him, he wasn’t sure, but it had happened hard and fast.

At least, the thought was Jisung’s greatest comfort in this strange new world, it was the same way for Minho, too.

  
  


-

  
  


To be honest, Jisung wasn’t entirely sure how it was his birthday - September 14th - already. He’d left the capital behind in the spring, as the warm weather sent a prickle of restlessness under his skin and the promise of another sweltering summer, another empty year in that claustrophobic city being told to  _ stay where you are and do as you’re told and the powers that be will provide _ failed to appeal to him any longer.

It had been long enough. He’d stayed where he was and done what he was told, and while the powers that be had certainly provided, they didn’t  _ care _ . Jisung had found himself alone - little more than a mouth to feed and a cog in a machine, running a feeble simulation of life as it had been Before.

Jisung wasn’t living life - he was existing. And as whispers spread among the capital’s quietly dissatisfied underbelly that those outside the city were building - not  _ re _ building the Before, but  _ building _ society anew, he found himself dreaming for the first time since the whole world had come crashing down around him.

Everyone in the capital had been told to stay put, to continue as normal, but Jisung’s normal was  _ gone _ , and with little left to exist for in a city filled with nothing more than memories for him, he’d fled before he could risk overthinking it for even another second. Maybe life would be harder out there - with nobody to provide, he’d definitely have to work for it - but even the slightest hope that it would be  _ better _ , that it would be  _ life _ again kept Jisung going, kept his feet moving.

  
  


And in the early summertime, in an abandoned gas station south of the capital, Jisung had met a whole new hope in the form of Minho.

  
  


They’d happened to take shelter in the same place, looking for refuge from the hammering rainfall of the early summer storms. Jisung had almost given Minho a heart attack, having quietly crept in before tripping over a dislodged floor tile and knocking the cash register onto the floor, but they’d found a sense of kinship quickly - too quickly almost. There had been something about the shared shimmer of fear in their eyes; the wear and tear on their clothes that had been in style a few years ago, reminders of a time when they were both carefree young men with so few worries that they could afford to keep up with brands and fashions; the sheer  _ exhaustion _ of two boys who weren’t old enough, not ready enough to be out on their own like this. It had them trusting each other way faster than was probably sensible, but Jisung had always had good instincts, and quick access to a length of metal pipe he’d picked up in a parking lot along the way should his instincts ever turn out to be wrong.

He had been so glad to be right, now more than ever. The two of them had worked together to break down the door to what ended up being a storeroom, concealing a surprising amount of useful - if pretty old - supplies that hadn’t been ransacked like the rest of the store probably had been long ago.

_ Lone wolves wouldn’t have been able to break down the door, I guess.  _ Minho had reasoned, digging through shelves of nonperishables to lay them out on the floor, to really take stock of what they’d found.  _ What a goldmine. A lot of this is probably still edible. _

_ Teamwork makes the dream work? _ Jisung smiled at him, then, holding out a hand.

Minho had taken it.

By the time they’d emerged from the gas station several days later, skies clear and supplies split evenly across two backpacks, Minho was holding Jisung’s hand again. In his other hand he’d held a compass, and with the shaky reservation of someone who, like Jisung, had only just started learning how to dream again, he’d told Jisung of his destination - a rural town far to the south. A friend of his had moved there in the years Before, he’d said, and while he hoped his friend might still be there, even more than that he hoped that they, too, were building.

Jisung hadn’t needed to be asked twice to make the journey with him.

  
  


-

  
  


“Happy birthday~” Minho had singsonged that morning, tossing a small bottle of something in Jisung’s direction as they packed up their camp. Catching the bottle and turning it around in his hands, Jisung raised his eyebrows at what turned out to be bug repellent. “Your present. You get custody of the bottle all day today, and I promise I won’t complain about how much you use even  _ one _ time.”

“Gee, you shouldn’t have.” Jisung poked out his tongue, then, but he’d actually been genuinely touched. When he had told Minho when his birthday was, he hadn’t expected him to actually remember it, let alone do anything about it. Jisung hadn’t even realised his own birthday was so close, really - sometimes days felt like weeks and weeks felt like years, but months and months also felt like hours, at most.

Time was weird, now. It was like time as Jisung had always known it had been left behind, in the Before.

Jisung had taken full advantage of his birthday present, at least, reapplying the bug repellent constantly across the day. Their travels had brought them to the edge of a large lake - a park of some kind, it seemed, from the toys and everyday objects still strewn about on the grass - and waterside bugs  _ always _ seemed to like Jisung the most.

_ “My blood must be delicious.”  _ Jisung had frowned one day, long ago now, complaining of his bug bites as Minho wondered aloud how someone could use so much bug spray and still be bitten all over.  _ “It’s not my fault if I taste good.” _

Minho had wiggled his eyebrows flirtatiously at that, and Jisung had thrown the bottle of bug spray at him, desperately trying to ignore the sudden heat flaring through his whole body. Minho had that effect on him sometimes, especially as they’d come to trust each other, lowered their guards a little, and Jisung had more time to just...openly stare at the older boy.

Okay, so the most important thing was that Minho could be trusted, but the  _ second _ most important thing was that Minho was really, really hot. He was gorgeous, and Jisung wouldn’t been surprised if maybe, had everything stayed the same, Minho would have ended up famous somehow. A model maybe. He certainly wouldn’t be here on the road with a grubby little kid like Jisung, that was for sure.

But here they were.

Funny.

  
  


Here they were, settled by the campfire on another quiet night. Jisung had set up the fire, despite Minho insisting on doing most of their chores that day, since Jisung had quite the knack for fires at this point and really, it was a gift to both of them to be able to cook dinner even a minute faster.

It hadn’t been a particularly special dinner, and was really the same as most other nights, working through their supplies at what they hoped was a reasonable pace as neither of them particularly enjoyed hunting and didn’t want to go back to that any earlier than they had to. Minho had at least tried to make it festive, though - lighting a few small twigs so Jisung could blow out the flames and make a wish.

“What was it?” Minho had smiled at him kindly, tossing the twigs onto the fire.

“If I tell you that, it won’t come true.” he’d deflected. Really, Jisung didn’t feel much like making wishes these days, but he felt even  _ less _ like risking his wish not coming true, so he kept his lips tightly sealed, even as their gazes had met with a strange understanding, a warmth so much more than the flickers of firelight in their eyes. All Jisung could do was look at the floor.

“Say  _ ah _ ~” A light prodding at his lips, and Jisung parted his lips without question, glancing back up at Minho again. He could taste sweetness when he finally bit down, chocolatey and crumbly on his tongue.

Cookies.

Jisung couldn’t even  _ remember _ when they’d picked those up, but apparently Minho had an encyclopedic knowledge of everything they had with them. Maybe he’d just been...planning this for a while.

“You’re funny,” Jisung hummed, taking the cookie from Minho’s hand to hold it for himself. “You really didn’t have to make such a big deal about today, you know? I mean...what’s turning another year older right now, really?”

“An achievement. To be celebrated.” Minho didn’t pull his hand away, and instead reached up to adjust the loop of flowers resting on Jisung’s head. A daisy chain, small and delicate, carefully knotted together by Minho while Jisung had built the campfire earlier that evening and plopped haphazardly onto Jisung’s head as the older boy had walked past on his way to set up camp with a cheery  _ here’s your party hat _ . “Some of us didn’t get to have our adult birthdays, you know.”

Jisung pressed his lips together firmly, an apology on his tongue but the words not quite fitting themselves together in his mouth. Minho was two years older than he was - if his birthday was in October, like Jisung remembered it being, he would have been barely shy of adulthood himself when everything fell apart.

Minho didn’t seem to be waiting for an apology, though, and instead held out another cookie in offering. Jisung hadn’t finished the first one, so lightly pushed Minho’s hand back towards him in a silent  _ no, you have it _ , and pretended he didn’t feel a buzz, like electricity under his skin, at the touch.

It made sense, Jisung thought, to be celebrating for both of them today.

  
  


-

  
  


_ “Do you have any family?” _ Jisung had asked him one day, as they lay back to back on the first real, proper bed Jisung had slept on since he’d left the capital.

They’d found a small motel by the roadside, nothing else for miles around. While it was clearly dusty and dirty, and wild animals had started taking over some of the rooms on the lower floors, it seemed relatively undisturbed. Not like the kind of destruction Jisung had always imagined, always seen in the movies.

Well, he supposed the movies had always had monsters and zombies and such. Meanwhile in reality, save for a few desperate and fearful people after the initial shutdowns and a handful of folks who were just itching for any reason to cause chaos, most people just wanted to continue their lives as peacefully as they could, grateful to have them at all.

They’d barely even seen any other travellers - like they were early, ahead of the curve despite years having passed. Maybe things would start to deteriorate as more and more people fled the cities.

It was kind of nice, having the world to themselves for a bit.

_ “I don’t know.”  _ Minho had hummed into the darkness after a long pause, pressing back against Jisung a little bit.  _ “My parents were abroad when it happened. I waited for them to come back, or even to reach out to me somehow, but…”  _ he sighed heavily.  _ “Is it bad I don’t know what would make me feel worse?” _

Jisung shook his head, but realised after a while that Minho was still waiting for a response, unable to see him. He rolled over to face Minho, then, running his fingertips lightly up the other boy’s side to get him to turn around, too.  _ “No.” _

Jisung wasn’t sure whether it was  _ too _ close when Minho turned over to look at him, or not close  _ enough _ . Bringing a hand up to entwine their fingers, Minho murmured quietly, sending a tiny shiver through Jisung as he felt his words against his skin.  _ “What about you? Did you...did it take anyone from you?” _

_ “No...but kinda yeah,”  _ he’d laughed bitterly, and Minho squeezed his hand tighter, shifted a little closer as Jisung recounted his own story.

  
  


Nobody in Jisung’s immediate family had fallen to the disease, and he knew he was very much an exception for that to be the case. It had hit fast, from seemingly nowhere, bringing down people the world over no matter where, no matter how old or young, no matter how healthy. It was almost like a coin flip for who lived and who died, and technically, Jisung had been extremely lucky as his parents and brother survived the wave without so much as a headache.

It hadn’t been the disease, it had been everything else - as aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, neighbours all fell, the stress, fear and grief of it all became all too much as the capital went into total shutdown. Tensions were too high, walls too thin, homes turning into prisons.

Jisung’s mother left as soon as the initial lockdown lifted.

She didn’t take her sons with her.

For a brief, painful moment of hope, Jisung wondered if perhaps the three of them left at home would be able to continue together, to power through and make things better, make the most of a bad situation. But the arguments only began to flare up more and more as fingers pointed and tempers flared.

Jisung’s brother left shortly after.

He didn’t take Jisung with him.

Within a year of the collapse, Jisung was alone, having finally left to find refuge for himself. He couldn’t spend another day in that apartment, bittersweet memories pouring out of the walls and a constant push and pull of blame and desperation backwards and forwards, day after day. By then, for the rest of the world, it had been months since the very worst of it - people were no longer dying, and by all definition, things were getting better.

For Jisung, though, even now he sometimes caught himself wondering if it wouldn’t have been easier, less painful, to have some kind of intangible, alien enemy to blame for his loss. Something to grieve for, rather than just rolling his eyes at humans being humans.

He wondered if that made him a bad person.

_ “No.”  _ Minho had told him firmly, and Jisung had buried his face in Minho’s shirt for the rest of the night.

  
  


They’d struggled to sleep that night, whispering nonsense to each other in the darkness to keep their minds from wandering too far. From idle speculation on what wildlife it was they could hear from outside or the rooms below, to hushed nostalgia for the world Before. Their homes, their schools, their comfort foods, their favourite games, their pipe dreams.

_ “Don’t laugh,”  _ Jisung had warned Minho, mumbling into the fabric of the other boy’s shirt.  _ “I wanted to study English and go into media somehow. Like journalism or something. Interview people, go places, write opinion pieces and all that jazz. It’s dumb, I know.” _

_ “It’s not dumb. I can imagine it for you.”  _ He’d stroked Jisung’s hair, but either didn’t notice or was kind enough to not point out the way it made the younger boy shiver.  _ “ _ Mine _ is dumb - I wanted to be a dancer. I took classes for years.” _

Jisung could definitely imagine that.  _ “You would have made a good idol. With your face and stuff.”  _ And Minho had laughed.

_ “You know, it’s funny. Hyunjin - the one who moved away, you know - he was in my dance classes. He complained so much about having to move, how he didn’t want to move so far from the good dance schools, from the centre of the industry. He was right to complain at the time, but seeing how everything worked out within the year…”  _ He laughed again, bitterly this time.  _ “Maybe he was the lucky one.” _

_ “Hyunjin.”  _ The name was familiar in Jisung’s mouth, and wheels started to turn in his head. Timelines, schedules, dancers.  _ “Was he tall? With this mole under his eye and-” _

_ “Yeah! Hwang Hyunjin?” _

_ “...he was in my class at school.” _

_ Damn _ . Suddenly the world felt extremely small. Apparently the whole time, even back in the Before, there had been a connection between Minho and Jisung. Perhaps they could have met after all, sometime in the alternate universe where things didn’t fall apart?

...well, not that Hyunjin would have been introducing them any time soon, but the connection was  _ there _ . It made Jisung’s head spin that Minho probably hadn’t even lived very far away from him, their whole lives. And yet it only took the end of the whole damn world, almost, to bring them together.

_ “...Jisung? Did you guys not get along? Is this uh, gonna cause issues if he turns out to still be there?” _

_ “Eh, not really.”  _ and it was true. Jisung hadn’t been able to  _ stand _ Hwang Hyunjin, that was for sure, but they’d never actually fought. Honestly, they’d hardly even spoken, save for an English project they’d done together a few months before Hyunjin had moved away which had actually gone very well. Hyunjin was just...tall, and really attractive, and had an effortless magnetism about him that made everybody want to root for him, and other such petty things that teenage Jisung had been desperately envious of that  _ could not matter any fucking less in the current circumstances _ . Jisung found himself really, really hoping that Hyunjin had made it through the collapse, if only to clear his own conscience for unfairly using him as an outlet for his own issues for so many years.  _ “I guess I just didn’t like how he made me feel. About myself.” _

A pause, and suddenly Minho’s arms were around Jisung properly, enveloping him completely and Jisung had barely been able to hold back tears, nuzzling into Minho’s chest and wrapping his arms tightly around the older boy’s middle.

_ “I can’t imagine why.” _

  
  


-

  
  


Jisung fiddled with his daisy chain. “Do you think we’ll still be on the road for your birthday?”

“Hmm. At our current pace, we probably will. Probably not much longer than that, though? We should have made it there before the weather really starts to cool down.”

The fire was starting to die down, and while it was probably about time for them to be getting to bed, Jisung didn’t really want to move. It was funny - despite everything, it had started to feel kind of like Jisung’s birthday, after all. The daisy chain slipping forward into his face, the bottle of bug spray in the grass nearby, the packet of cookies - half eaten - peeking out of Minho’s backpack, and  _ Minho,  _ pressed close to Jisung’s side. It all made Jisung feel…

...special. Celebrated, even.

Honestly, Jisung wasn’t sure how he felt, knowing they were almost  _ there _ . Maybe it was weird, but being on the road with Minho, despite having no real food security and literally sleeping outside, was the most secure Jisung had felt in years, since Before. It might have been silly to be worried about  _ change _ after having everything he’d ever known pulled out from underneath him, but Jisung was finally starting to feel safe again. Safe in himself. Safe with someone he cared about.

It wasn’t exactly change he feared, but losing what had become important to him.

“Are you…” he hadn’t meant to start talking, but he felt Minho’s eyes on him, giving Jisung his undivided attention, and knew he couldn’t really stop now without raising questions. “Are you nervous? About when we get there?”

“...no? Why would I be?”

Jisung felt dumb. He could feel his face heating up as he struggled for a way to explain without making himself look even more stupid. “I mean...what if it’s not as good as we hoped? What if we get there, and it’s actually no better than what we left behind? What if it’s  _ worse _ ?”

Minho hummed, and the two boys kept their eyes trained on the fire as it lightly flickered its last. “I’m not worried about that, really. It has to be better than where we came from.” He lowered his voice, then, but Jisung heard him loud and clear, the whole world silent and still around them save for the quiet  _ crackles  _ of the fire. “Where we came from, I didn’t have you.”

Jisung’s heart was pounding, and suddenly it was like the campfire was the most riveting thing he’d ever seen in his life, unable to tear his gaze away from it lest he meet Minho’s eyes.

Minho went on. “Honestly, even if it turned out to not be so great there, I’d figured we could just...keep moving? Together?”

“Yeah…” it was like he’d forgotten how to breathe, surprised at the sound of his own voice. “You’re- you’re right. We could do that.”

“Jisung.” He responded to the call of his own name before he could stop himself, and suddenly Minho was so, so close to him. His face was  _ right _ there, eyes half-lidded and something questioning, wavering in his expression that definitely wasn’t just the firelight. “There’s one more thing I need to give you. For your birthday.”

Jisung couldn’t help but laugh nervously. Oh God. Minho was so close. “You don’t have to do so much for me, you know. It’s just a birthday.”

“Mm, not really. Turning nineteen is kind of a one-time thing.”

Their noses were practically touching, and Jisung was starting to feel a little light-headed. He could feel it, what was coming, but as his mind raced to catch up with the situation he just couldn’t get his thoughts in order. Why was he panicking? Why was he scared? When Minho always made him feel so safe, made him feel so good? Maybe it was nothing to do with Minho at all, and more about how badly Jisung  _ wanted _ Minho, how terrified he was of letting himself  _ want _ for anything anymore in a world where he, both of them, everyone struggled through each day for what they needed to survive.

Then again, maybe Jisung was already too far gone to worry about that. Maybe having Minho close to him had already progressed from a want to a need, way too fast, way too long ago.

Minho’s words against Jisung’s lips. “Your present, ‘Sungie. Can I give it to you?”

Jisung nodded gently, eyes slipping closed.

As Minho’s fingers wound into Jisung’s hair, letting his daisy chain fall forgotten into the grass beside the bottle of bug spray, a faint memory of something to do with adult birthdays flitted through his mind before Minho’s mouth met his own and everything went blissfully blank.

  
  


The campfire may have been dying down, but despite the cool evening air on Jisung’s skin, it was like the fire was now burning inside him, white-hot and raging. Minho kissed Jisung like maybe, just maybe he’d wanted it just as badly, needed it to keep going, to get him through the days and weeks and months and however long stretched ahead of them from now. Jisung had given up on thinking, having surrendered entirely to feeling for now, but later on he would wonder if anything in Minho’s actions in recent weeks - playful comments, flirtatious jokes, constant excuses to touch Jisung or hold him close - had been testing the waters for tonight. Maybe he’d been planning for this.

Jisung had never let himself think about kissing Minho before, about touching him. Never. Not even once. 

(Dreams didn’t count.)

Somehow, Minho’s lips on his made more sense than anything else in the world had in years.

“Please,” he whispered, “tell me this isn’t a one-time thing too.”

“Not if you don’t want it to be.”

“I need you.”

Jisung hadn’t meant for it to come out quite like that, but he couldn’t say it wasn’t true - mortifyingly so. Minho shuddered, then, before leaning in to kiss Jisung again more deeply, with a renewed sense of urgency, and Jisung had pulled him close with such vigour, he almost toppled over backwards.

Minho was basically in his lap now, not even an inch between them as they finally let themselves want - let themselves  _ have _ \- without restraint. Whispers of nonsense and quiet gasps were lost to the night like the smoke swirling up from the last embers of the campfire; shaking hands wandered nervously, almost shy, exploring their new boundaries now the old walls had come crashing down. The first testing hints of teeth and tongue had Jisung’s mind reeling, his own voice unrecognisable in his ears with sounds he never knew he could make.

Nothing and nobody - Jisung realised as he panted hard, chest rising and falling heavily with Minho’s as they kissed, touched, Minho’s mouth leaving Jisung’s briefly to move down his neck - nothing and nobody in the whole world, even Before, had ever made Jisung feel like this.

Nineteen was no age at all, for sure, but he still had to wonder if, having had a taste of Minho, anything or anyone else could  _ ever _ make him feel the same way.

They ran out of steam eventually, mouths moving lazily against each other, too tired to really kiss but with no will to break apart, to make any distance between them. Even an inch would be too much, and Jisung couldn’t bear the thought of letting go.

It felt like they’d been kissing for hours, maybe even forever. Maybe the world had ended around them all over again, and they just hadn’t been paying attention.

“I-” he began breathlessly, losing himself in Minho’s eyes for just a moment. He wondered if Minho had always looked at him like that, and maybe Jisung just hadn’t noticed before. Jisung was flat on his back in the grass, but despite the whole universe glittering in the sky behind him, Jisung only had eyes for Minho. “Have no idea what to do for your birthday.”

And then Minho was grinning, dazzling, putting the stars to shame. “Not to be gross, but there’s only one thing I really need.”

Jisung felt himself smiling back before he could stop himself, a twinge in his cheeks. “That  _ is _ gross.” He poked out his tongue. “Kiss me.”

And Minho kissed him. Again and again and again.

  
  
  


It was a weird world to grow up in. Honestly, for a while there Jisung hadn’t been sure if he was even going to make it, and he still had no idea what came next, what waited just around the corner for the entire rest of the future. But maybe, just maybe, that wasn’t so bad.

For the first time since Before, Jisung was feeling optimistic.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/jicasso_future) \+ [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/futurelikejicasso)


End file.
